“I wish I would have gone down a day or two earlier,” said Kerr, an animal behavior consultant in St. Thomas Township. “I felt I could have accomplished more. I guess I was ill prepared.”

For three days Kerr helped Humane Society volunteers comb neighborhoods in Naples for stray animals. They searched at night because animals hid during the day and came out at night to scavenge, he said.

“It was pretty weird,” Kerr said. “At night it was pitch black. It was pretty intense. It was like going back to caveman times.”

There was no electricity and no water in the muggy Florida heat. Kerr slept in his sport utility vehicle and occasionally showered at truck stops posted with boil-water notices.

“I couldn’t buy ice,” he said. “It amazed me to see how bad it was. I ended up parking the (bass) boat. The only thing the boat came in handy for was carrying all that food down.”

Trees were uprooted everywhere, he said. The tidal surge dropped debris everywhere. Some guys were selling power generators from the back of a truck at three times the pre-hurricane price.

Kerr found two Chihuahuas on a front porch of an abandoned home, probably waiting to be let in, he said. He took them to an animal shelter and visited them on the day he started back for Pennsylvania. He was back in St. Thomas on Monday.

St. Thomas man Mathew Kerr traveled to Florida to rescue animals following Hurricane Irma. Kerr is shown with pictures of dogs he helped to rescue in Naples, Florida.(Photo: Courtesy)

The disaster response team for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals helped relocate, rescue and shelter more than 1,200 animals affected by Irma, according to the ASPCA. Many were transported to Duncan, South Carolina.

Kerr said he rescued a half dozen dogs and four kittens from a retirement community in the Naples tidewater area. Kerr took several of the pets to a Miami shelter where power had been restored earlier.

“Some were microchipped, but contacting the owners was next to impossible because the owners weren’t home,” Kerr said.

Collier County Domestic Animal Services offered free microchipping to 200 pets just days prior to the arrival of Irma. The Naples area opened three evacuation shelters to families with vaccinated and crated dogs and cats.

Insured losses from Irma are estimated at $25 billion to $35 billion, according to AIR Worldwide, a catastrophe modeling firm. Accuweather estimates total damage from the hurricane at about $100 billion. “It’s going to take a long time to clean up,” Kerr said. “I’d love to go back down there. There’s so much to do. I’d definitely do it again, I should say, if my wife will let me. I’d be a little more prepared.”

With Hurricane Maria projected to take a path similar to Irma’s, Kerr may get another opportunity.